Congreve
His Biographers and Critics
An American literary journal once assured its readers that Congreve has a ‘niche in the Valhalla of Ben Jonson.’ The remark is injudicious, of course, even for a literary American, and there is no apparent reason why it should ever have got itself uttered. It is probably the unluckiest thing that ever was said of Congreve, who—with some unimportant exceptions—has been singularly fortunate in his critics and biographers. Dryden wrote of him with enthusiasm, and in doing so he may be said to have set a fashion of admiration which is vigorous and captivating even yet. Swift, Voltaire, Lamb, Hunt, Hazlitt, Thackeray, Macaulay, to name but these, have dealt with him in their several ways; of late he has been praised by such masters of the art of writing as Mr. Swinburne and Mr. George Meredith; while Mr. Gosse, the last on the list, surpasses most of his predecessors in admiration and nearly all, I think, in knowledge.